What has taste got to do with it?

[some guy]

I recently ran across another iteration of a point of view that I just don't understand: another "given my taste in music, what would you recommend" request.

That inevitably reminded me of another idea about taste, which was that you can have good taste or bad taste in music. I recently mentioned a recording I like to a friend of mine, whose response was "Well, that just shows that you have good taste."

Gross!! This is music we're talking about. This is about an enormous universe of lovely and delightful things, from Perotin to Parmegiani. All I know is that the thrill I experience when I'm listening to music has nothing at all to do with taste. Taste doesn't enter into it. It's an impertinence.

And, the more I listen to new things (things I don't like, yet), the less useful having taste is to me. In fact, it simply gets in the way.

That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.

[Octave]

+1 to this.  Though I think you move much too quickly when you say that "taste doesn't enter into it"; maybe some people have a suppler taste, or taste of a different kind, i.e. a taste for new textures or sharp juxtapositions?  Maybe curiosity is itself a function of taste, or is itself a taste?  As for what you pretty clearly target, though, I am with you; so much that's called taste---and not only the maniacally-conservative wing of classical-music traditionalism---seems to be an endgame in repetition and exhaustive burrowing: the sense that you don't really "get" a composer's work if you've missed any recording (iteration) of it,  yet, on the other hand, that it really doesn't matter that much if you've never tasted at all of the huge dark continents of wholly-other kinds of music.  (Including arguably very different-sounding music made with the same means and within the same economy as the rest of "the tradition".)  I am more sympathetic than ever to the priority of depth over and against breadth; but that depth should be regarded as acquired at a terrible price, as involving a real sacrifice (and not just the sacrifice-for-show designed to attract praise).   So many self-styled experts I meet---and I mean experts period, not just music nerds or professors---don't seem too troubled by the dark side of their expertise, i.e. its provincialism.  In fact they deny that it exists, this dark side.  At least passively, it's implied that what they don't know, doesn't matter.

Taste as a kind of discipline or policing of self and others would seem to be a sorry-assed surrogate for community; like any community built on hazing, or on allergy to invention, or on xenophobia, such a community would seem more like a prison than a bustling city of ideas.  Desert island, indeed!

[mahler10th]

I recently ran across another iteration of a point of view that I just don't understand: another "given my taste in music, what would you recommend" request.
That inevitably reminded me of another idea about taste, which was that you can have good taste or bad taste in music. I recently mentioned a recording I like to a friend of mine, whose response was "Well, that just shows that you have good taste."
Gross!! This is music we're talking about. This is about an enormous universe of lovely and delightful things, from Perotin to Parmegiani. All I know is that the thrill I experience when I'm listening to music has nothing at all to do with taste. Taste doesn't enter into it. It's an impertinence.
And, the more I listen to new things (things I don't like, yet), the less useful having taste is to me. In fact, it simply gets in the way.
That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.

+ another 1      Yes, agreed, there is a distinction between the experience of amazing aural manifestations and the simple idea of 'taste in music'.  'Taste in music' is yadda yadda.  You cannot taste Beethoven! But by God you can hear him!   

[mc ukrneal]

Taste = judgement. Some of it is subjective and some of it is objective. And sometimes it is a matter of perspective as well. For example, anyone who agrees with me has good taste!

[mahler10th]

...anyone who agrees with me has good taste!

How very distasteful of you to say so.   

[DavidRoss]

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinions, it is because they only know their side of the question.

[Daverz]

What's taste, what's taste got to do with it?  What's taste but second-hand aesthetics?

With apologies to Ms. Tina Turner.

[Brahmsian]

I agree 100% with you, Michael! 

Countless times, people that I work with or others in everyday life that listen to music other than Classical Music have this as a response to me:

Ray:
"I listen to Classical Music"

Response:
"Wow Ray, that is impressive!  You have very good taste in music.  I was never really into classical, although it is really great music to relax to!"


I find that I have to hold back my cringing, and sadness to the response. 

[Daverz]

One acquaintance complained that classical music was too loud.  I was too dumbfounded to reply.  (Some classical (not Classical) music is too loud IMO, but that just struck me as a bizarre generalization.)

[Florestan]

One acquaintance complained that classical music was too loud. 

I once came across someone complaining that it is in turns too loud and too soft.

[jochanaan]

I once came across someone complaining that it is in turns too loud and too soft.

I've heard that complaint before.  There was probably too much background noise.

What I like is what I like.  I seldom consciously consider "taste."

[Brian]

I once came across someone complaining that it is in turns too loud and too soft.

I actually find that this can be true on long car trips; I have to keep my hand on the volume control when listening to orchestral music and driving. For instance, once I bought Boulez's complete Firebird on DG, a recording with a truly huge dynamic range, and put it on while driving back home. Most of the first scenes were nearly inaudible, so I turned the volume way up... and nearly blew my eardrums out!

[71 dB]

I think "taste" has several dimensions. Roughly speaking bad taste = lack of understanding coloured with personal preferences while good taste is understanding coloured with personal preferences.

Someone lacking understanding might says: "J. S. Bach's music is boring because it hasn't got electric guitars in it". This kind of bad taste can/should be criticized.

Someone having understanding might says: "J. S. Bach's Partitas are awesome keyboard music, but I don't like them played on piano" while another person having equal understanding but different preferences might enjoy Bach's Partitas played on almost any keyboard instrument.

Another dimensions of taste might relate to the function of music (for relaxing, dancing, ...etc.) and the ways one listens to music (at home, in concerts live, with loudspeakers, headphones...)

[Florestan]

I actually find that this can be true on long car trips; I have to keep my hand on the volume control when listening to orchestral music and driving.

That is true.  That's why I very rarely listen to classical music while driving.

[Florestan]

I think "taste" has several dimensions. Roughly speaking bad taste = lack of understanding coloured with personal preferences while good taste is understanding coloured with personal preferences.

Someone lacking understanding might says: "J. S. Bach's music is boring because it hasn't got electric guitars in it". This kind of bad taste can/should be criticized.

Someone having understanding might says: "J. S. Bach's Partitas are awesome keyboard music, but I don't like them played on piano harpsichord" while another person having equal understanding but different preferences might enjoy Bach's Partitas played on almost any keyboard instrument.

Another dimensions of taste might relate to the function of music (for relaxing, dancing, ...etc.) and the ways one listens to music (at home, in concerts live, with loudspeakers, headphones...)

With that minor correction I agree with everything you wrote. 

[DavidRoss]

I think "taste" has several dimensions. Roughly speaking bad taste = lack of understanding coloured with personal preferences while good taste is understanding coloured with personal preferences.

Someone lacking understanding might say: "J. S. Bach's music is boring because it hasn't got electric guitars in it". This kind of bad taste can/should be criticized.

Someone having understanding might say: "J. S. Bach's Partitas are awesome keyboard music, but I don't like them played on piano" while another person having equal understanding but different preferences might enjoy Bach's Partitas played on almost any keyboard instrument.

Another dimensions of taste might relate to the function of music (for relaxing, dancing, ...etc.) and the ways one listens to music (at home, in concerts live, with loudspeakers, headphones...)

Amen. The most insightful thing I recall you posting here.

[ibanezmonster]

Which have taste get did without it's?

[DavidRoss]

Which have taste get did without it's?

See http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,10977.0.html

[ibanezmonster]

See http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,10977.0.html

Its good thread but.
  and then were_
mmkay"'?

[Mandryka]

Just to get a handle on the question posed in the title of the thread, ask an easier one first.

Imagine someone who said that oenology wasn't a matter of taste. That his preference for cheap Lambrusco was just as valid as my preference for Petrus and Krug.

Well in a way he's be right -- if you prefer Lambrusco to Petrus then that's fine, that's your right. But saying that isn't very interesting.  I can't help feeling that there's much more to be said. The question is, I think, is Petrus a finer wine than cheap Lambrusco? The answer of course is yes.

Years of experience exploring fine wines has given me the acuity to identify components in a tasting which just aren't accessible to people who haven't invested a similar effort. My reading and discussion about wines has helped me acquire some difficult and hard to apply concepts which a more naive drinker just lacks.

Of course my hypothetical interlocutor may prefer the cheap plonk -- in doing so he's preferring an inferior product.

Now mutatis mutandis for music. Taste is a sort of sensory acuity. And  an understanding of evaluative concepts. It's developed by certain sorts of experience:  listening and participation in a musical form of life.